Thursday, February 12, 2015

Zyuganov Wants Anti-Sovietism Declared a Form of Russophobia

Paul
Goble

Staunton, February 12 – In a
2,000-word open letter to his fellow Russian citizens, Gennady Zyuganov, the
head of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), says that “it is
time that everyone recognize that anti-Sovietism is a form of Russophobia and
that anyone who fights with Soviet history is an open enemy of Russia.”

On the one hand, this is no more
than an example of the way in which political leaders seek to exploit any
broader trend to promote their own political agenda. But on the other, it is an
indication of the way in which Vladimir Putin’s pursuit of a “single-stream” of
Russian history risks tearing apart his coalition and threatening regional
stability more broadly.

First of all, because some of the Putin’s
most passionate supporters are to be found among the Russian Orthodox who have
an anything but positive view of the Soviet past given the anti-religious
campaigns of the communist party, they are certain to be less than pleased by
this appeal and the ideas lying behind it.

Second, Zyuganov’s call will offend
both other Russian nationalists who will see it as an indication that the
current regime’s “nationalism” is simply warmed-over Soviet patriotism,
something many want to escape, and the non-Russian quarter of the population
who will view such calls as an indication that their future is threatened as
well.

And third, the KPRF chief’s words
will have an international resonance as well, suggesting to many of Russia’s
neighbors that the Russia of today is simply the latest edition of the old
Soviet Union and its tsarist predecessor and that their status as independent
states is now under threat as a result.

Because the KPRF is part of the
systemic opposition rather than the real one, members of all three groups are
likely to view the words of Zyuganov who has cooperated closely with the regime
as a trial balloon rather than dismissing them as many in the West may be
inclined to do as nothing more than yet another last gasp of communist
ideology.

But however that may be, Zyuganov’s
open letter deserves attention as an indication of a powerful stream in current
Moscow thinking and one that is likely to have an impact on Russians,
non-Russians inside the Russian Federation, and the non-Russian countries
around Russia’s perimeter.

“It was impossible
to destroy Soviet power by economic sanctions. Nor could it be defeated by the
force of arms and Hitlerite hordes. But it was undermined from within by the
promotoion of the growth of a fifth column of dissident anti-Soviet activists
and open traitors.”

“Despite these tragic lessons, today, anti-Soviet types
of various masks feel themselves quite at home … It is difficult to agree with
a situation when state television spends money on the propaganda of views of aggressive
Russophobes and anti-Soviet types.”

“Anti-Sovietism is the banner of traitors and defeatists.
It is pushing our country toward the abyss. The inspirers and paymasters of
anti-Sovietism today are exactly the same kind of debauched political forces
who worked against the USSR during the times of the ‘cold war.’”

“Ahead is the 100th anniversary of the Great
October Socialist Revolution. Russia has ever basis for marking it just as
widely as the jubilee of the Great French Revolution is celebrated in France.
This must be recognized now.”

“In order to get Russia out of the crisis, in order to
open before it new horizons, it is necessary to recognize the unity of our
history … It is necessary to act without delay, and it is necessary to begin
with the institutions of the authorities and their representatives. Anti-Sovietism
in them must be decisively rooted out.”